Power Tempts
by AnonymouseKitten
Summary: Knowledge is power, and power is temptation. In the middle of a war, choices are key. But how do you know what choices to make when you don't even know your own mind? Voldemort is a brilliant stratigist, and Hermione has played right into his possession.
1. Chapter 1

**Power Tempts**

**Author:** Jezebelle Jade **Categories:** Drama/Angst **Paring**: Hermione Granger & Lord Voldemort/Tom Marvolo Riddle **Rating:** T **Word Count**: **Spoilers:** Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows up to Chapter 31. **Summary:** Knowledge is power, and power is temptation. Hermione Granger knows this better than most. When she picks up the diadem in the Room of Requirement, it fights back. Hermione's weakness isn't like Ron's, but the tiara presents a temptation she cannot resist. How this will affect the events that occur forthwith, no one could have anticipated. Lord Voldemort was always a brilliant strategist, and now Hermione is on the other side of the chess board, and she has played herself right into his possession. In the middle of a war, choices are key. But how do you know what choices to make when you don't even know your own mind? A what if story. What if Hermione, separated from her friends by her search, had found diadem first? Canon until partway into DH Chapter 31: The Battle of Hogwarts. Based partly on the books, and partly on the movies.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, and Warner Bros. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended. The scene where Draco, Goyle and Crabbe confront Hermione, Harry and Ron is mostly taken from the book, with a few alterations made. I do not own it.

"Speech"

'Hermione's thoughts'

_Voldemort/Parseltounge_

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

Hermione rounded a corner, and continued along a row of assorted junk and once-loved items that students and teachers alike had stashed in the Room of Hidden things. She, Harry and Ron had been looking for the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw for about 15 minutes, and nothing, except a false alarm when Ron found a rusty old crown. His jubilation was soon quenched when Hermione pointed out that the diadem was goblin-made, and therefore not susceptible to ageing or rusting.

"Harry, are you sure this is where it was hidden? It's been quarter of an hour, and we haven't made any progress." She called across the room. They had split up to speed up the search, and she hadn't seen Harry or Ron since they had found the old crown; they could be anywhere for all she knew.

"This is where the Grey Lady said it was! It _has_ to be in here!" Harry shouted back, anger coloring his tone. Hermione got the impression that he was about 30 meters away, but she couldn't be sure amongst all these piles of rubbish. She sighed, and continued searching, wondering if they would ever find it.

'And what about all the people out there, fighting, whilst you are skulking around in here.' She thought, throwing a faded burgundy and gold pillow, with stuffing bulging out of a hole in the cover, aside. 'There could be people dying _right now_, people you know, who you could have saved.'

Hermione swallowed guiltily, and cursed her affinity for internal arguments, they were going to prove unhelpful to her concentration in finding that flaming piece of jewellery.

'Finding the horcrux is the most important thing at the moment. You can help the others later.'

She continued the search, mind wholly focused on finding the diadem.

They searched in silence for another 10 minutes without finding anything except for a few doxies. Hermione was just passing an antique set of table and chairs when she heard a rattling. She turned, and looked the source of the sound, determining after a few seconds that it was originating from a small drawer in the table, just under the wooden rim.

Approaching cautiously, she pulled out her wand, and made a flicking motion towards her body. The drawer slowly slid out, and nothing deadly immediately flew out, so she approached and looked inside.

Hermione spotted the hairbrush that appeared to be the object vibrating, but upon levitating it out, she discovered that it was a small, brown leather box that had been partially concealed underneath it that was actually the perpetrator of the rattling drawer. She levitated the box out, placed it on the table, grasped the cold iron knob, and with a bit of effort closed the stiff drawer. With a flick of her wand, the box sprang open, and revealed the object inside.

She could have whooped with triumph. Here it was, the thing they were desperately looking for, and _she _had found it! Hermione had no doubt it was the horcrux, apart from the fact it was so well hidden, it had the same feel as the locket and the cup, like waves of cold, dark dread emanating from it.

"No wonder we couldn't find it! Inside a drawer, it would have taken us hours if it hadn't been rattling…not such a bright idea, was it Riddle?" She murmured to herself.

She simultaneously reached for the basilisk fang at the top of the expansive pile of stuff in her bag, and opened her mouth to shout for her companions, when the deep blue sapphire set into the diamond flashed red.

'_I know what you desire, Hermione Granger.' _A voice inside her head whispered seductively. '_Knowledge is power, and I can give you all the knowledge in existence. You could show the "blood purists" that you are not inferior. Show them how much stronger, better, wiser than them you are. Make Draco Malfoy pay for all the times he has slighted your blood, all the insults shamelessly thrown your way. Show Bellatrix Lestrange that you are not a weak little Mudblood, and take your revenge for the torture you were forced to endure. You could end this war…_It whispered. _All you have to do is put me on, and all that knowledge will be yours…'_

'Yes,' she thought. 'I could put right all the wrongs that those pureblooded lowlifes condoned and carried out. I could end this once and for all, and bring equality and peace…'

'No!' a part of her screamed. 'Harry is the Chosen One; he is the one who will end the war!'

She once again opened her mouth to shout an alarm to Harry and Ron, when a haze overtook her. Like before, all she wanted was to put on the diadem, but it was much stronger this time, much worse. 'I would gain everything…wisdom beyond comparison…' She reasoned. 'The only sensible option was to put it on.'

'_Yes, girl. Just put the diadem on, and all the answers will be clear… '_

Without any conscious effort, she reached out and drew out the circlet from where it was nestled inside the velvet lining of its box. Its weight felt good in her hand, and the desire to wear it intensified.

She brought it up to her head, and hooked the metal teeth lining the bottom edge of the circular tiara into her hair, and let go of it. It dropped into place, encompassing her head below her hairline and just above her eyebrows, with the sapphire laying between them.

Inside her head, it was like idea's had burst forth, flooding her mind with new ideas, and endless possibilities. She marvelled at the things that occurred to her, and found herself thinking of the possibility of extracting the bezoars and combining them with other ingredients to create a potion that could cure all poisons…

'Deadly nightshade would add to the healing effect, and broaden the width of poisons that could be cured, with the unfortunate side effect that it would kill the drinker…But adding thyme and unicorn hair would neutralise the mortal poison and bring it down to only mild pain, whilst the plant would burn out the poison that had been ingested or venom that had entered the blood stream. Aconite would dull the pain and lull the body into an induced comatose state, to better prepare it for healing the effects of the potion that had already taken place as well as help reverse them, well, to a mild extent anyway, it would struggle to reverse the eyeballs popping that occurred when a person had taken the 15th Devilliarian Draught.' She mused. 'But that could be reversed by an application of cham-No! There isn't time to be doing this! I need to get Harry and Ron, and get out of here, and go and find Nagini! Voldemort needs to be mortal for when the final stand takes place. We need to destroy these last horcru-'

Once more, the sapphire flashed red.

Hermione screamed in pain, and sank to the floor, clutching her head. Agonising pain pounded through her head, and fire lanced throughout her body, burning in her veins. Images flashed through her mind; too fast for her too see.

The white, snakelike face of Lord Voldemort sneered at her, and green flash from his wand, as pain speared through her brain.

She let out an inhuman scream, of agony and ripped the diadem from her head.

Her mind seemed to fog over, her thought processes slowing down, but still she saw his face in her mind.

"HERMIONE! RUN! GET OUT" It was Harry, and he appeared to be close. She forgot, for a second, about the face of the man they were trying to kill, and it faded out of her mind.

'What was going on with Harry? Maybe they had found something dangerous? Or, had the Death Eaters breached the wards? Or-'

She felt the rumbling roar before she heard it, and not thinking, grabbed the diadem and flung it in her beaded bag, before hurtling down the row, and sprinting past the corner, and along, passing the bottom of row after row of junk, until she reached the dead end. Covering a large hole was a cracked mirror, tightly wedged in, and through the missing pieces of glass, she could see Harry and Ron.

Harry raised his wand towards the gap, and shouted "Reducto!"

Hermione covered her head with her arms and dropped to the floor as glass rained down on her.

"Come on Hermione, get through! We need to get out now!"

She scrambled through the empty mirror frame, just missing being squashed by the pile collapsing.

"What's wrong Harry? Have you found the diadem?" She asked. Of course, Hermione knew that he couldn't have found the diadem, but she didn't really know what else to say.

"We have a bigger problem now," Harry said, grasping her arm, and towing her down the row.

"What? And what is that noise? Did you find something in here that was dangerous?" She asked, growing more suspicious.

"Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle got in here."

"What? How?" Hermione was sure that you could only get in if you knew exactly where the other person was and Malfoy couldn't have known, unless he had been in here before.

"Never mind that, Crabbe set fire to the bloody place!" Ron howled from behind them. "We need to go!"

"He's right," Harry said, eyes wide and panicked. "We need to get out _right now_!_"_

Before anyone could say anything else, fire exploded from the pile behind them. Throwing her free hand over her head, Hermione pelted down the corridor, dragging Harry behind her. She could her Ron panting as he ran just ahead of them, and they stopped dead as they almost toppled into a wall of fire.

"Aguamenti!" Ron screamed, but the water spell had no effect on the towering flames. Hermione's heart fell from where it had been resting in her throat for the last few minutes, into her stomach, with a horrible sinking feeling. 'How could Crabbe have been _so stupid_?'

"Volo!" She yelled, and a stream of compressed air blasted a small hole in the flames, which she leaped through, followed by Harry and Ron, who yelled in panic as the hole began to close up around him, and just reached the other side in time. She straightened up, and wished she hadn't. On the other side of the clearing were Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, heatedly discussing how to get out of the room, whilst trying to put out the flames with their wands. They hadn't noticed the trio, over the obstructive sounds of their argument and the roaring flames, and Hermione was about to motion to her friends to quietly move off to the side. Clearly, Ron had other plans.

"MALFOY!" He roared, charging towards the Slytherins, wand out, ready to blast a spell.

"You like it hot, Weasel?" Crabbe snarled, pulling out his wand, an ugly sneer on his face.

"Stupefy!" A red beam of light flew from the tip of Hermione's wand, past Ron, and would have hit Crabbe if he had not been pulled aside by Malfoy; it hit Goyle instead, sending him crashing to the ground.

"It's the Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!" Crabbe bellowed

Hermione dived aside, and the jet of green light flew past her and impacted on the flaming heap of junk behind her. It caught fire, and those flames were immediately swallowed up by Crabbe's conjured ones.

Incensed that Crabbe had aimed to kill, both Harry and Hermione turned their wands on him.

"Stupefy!" Harry yelled.

"Crura Spasmata!" Hermione cried, and the yellow beam of light hit Crabbe, whilst Harry's soared over him. Crabbe fell to the ground, knocking Malfoy's wand out of his hand, clutching at his legs and roaring in pain at the cramps that were tearing up his leg muscles.

"RUN!" Hermione shouted over the roar of the flames.

As the three of them tore away from the clearing down a narrow corridor in the debris, they saw Malfoy scrambling for his wands and heard him desperately shouting "Finite!", but didn't stick around to see if he was sucessful.

"Point me!" Hermione ordered her wand, and it spun in her hand. "This way!" And she hurtled off to the left.

She was so focused on reaching the exit, she barely even noticed when Harry's hand shot out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her to a sudden stop.

"Brooms, Hermione! We can fly out of here! We're never going to get out on foot!" Harry said, brandishing a pair brooms he had grabbed from a nearby bile of rubbish.

Hermione's heart soared at the same time her stomach jumped up to her diaphragm. She really hated flying, and had a terrible fear of heights. But, given the choice between that, and burning to a crisp…

She clambered on behind Harry, who she had determined was the safer choice, and clung on as if her life depended on it, and rightly so; she didn't want to plummet into the flames below.

As they soared towards the door, Hermione scanned for any signs of Draco, Crabbe or Goyle. They would easily curse them if they caught sight of the trio, and from this height, if they fell out of the sky, it would be fatal, not to mention they were certainly dead if they feel into the flames, or if they fell and one of them got injured, _or _if they fell and couldn't make their way to the-

'Get a grip, Granger. Listing all the ways you could die right now is hardly helpful.'

Harry suddenly swerved to the right, and Hermione squeaked, and clutched him tighter.

"What are you doing? The door is over there!" Hermione screamed.

"We can't leave Malfoy and the others to burn to death!" Harry yelled back, his eyes focused on the blond mop of hair. Hermione couldn't see Crabbe or Goyle anywhere.

"Are you _insane_? They tried to kill us all! Crabbe shot the _killing curse _at Hermione for _no reason_! _They_ would leave _us_; in fact, they'd probably stick around to taunt us a bit!" Ron yelled back at his best friend.

"Harry, it's no use dying for Draco; you have many more people who need saving from Voldemort, who will be murdered if we die in here." Hermione spoke softly, trying to reason with Harry.

"We _can't_ leave him, guys. Just give me one chance to grab him, if I can't do pull him up on the way back, we'll have to…to…" Harry didn't seem to be able to say the last words, as if the thought of leaving someone, even someone like Draco, who had just tried to kill them, was too painful to even bear thinking about.

There was no point in arguing with Harry when his mind was made up about something, and besides, they were more than halfway there.

As they approached the tower of desks, Harry swooped, and Hermione pressed her face into his shoulder blades. She felt them slow, and the broom dipped and rolled as an extra weight was added, although admittedly not much. 'I would have thought that between the size of his head, and his ego, he would have weighed much more.' Hermione scolded herself; she shouldn't be unnecessarily mean, even about Malfoy. 'Unnecessary? He and his friends just tried to murder you, and you think a little retribution is objectionable?'

Hermione could feel the start of an internal argument coming on. 'He was probably underweight from all the stress and malnourishment he was subjected to by _Voldemort _and having him live inside his house, being forced to do immoral things.' There was a subconscious _so there_ on the end of that sentence.

"Hermione!" Harry's loud voice woke her from her reverie. "Help me!"

He had hold of Draco in one hand, and was struggling to pull him onto the broom. She could see the blond's hand slipping slowly from Harry's grasp.

'_You could just let him fall, Hermione._' The words slithered through her mind, dark and insidious. '_You could show him the consequences of all the things he did or said to you, he would learn his lesson, for a short time, and then he would be out of your way entirely._' 'No! I can't just let him drop. A few childish actions doesn't mean he is deserving of death, and that point besides, I don't have the authority to counsel who lives and who dies.' Firmly pushing the voice out of her head, Hermione quashed her trepidation, and leaned out to grasp Malfoy's arm, just above the elbow, and tugged him onto the broom. As they sped back towards the Room of Requirements door, Hermione was sure that they were going slower, and were much closer to the ground; so close, in fact, that they were having to weave around the flames. Harry wasn't used to the broom being so slow, after all, he usually handled a Firebolt, with one person on it, and several times a flame surged upwards, catching them, and leaving a small burn on Hermione's ankle and her jeans singed, and the sole of Harry's shoe melted away.

They had almost reached the door, with Ron preceding them by quite a way. He had just slipped through the doorway, when the flames, as if sensing they were about to lose a second lot of victims, shot upwards, obstructing the towering entrance and the small crack between the huge doors which they could have got out of.

They were trapped inside the burning room.

"Hermione, what do we do?" Harry yelled. "I can't fly through it, it's too thick."

Behind Hermione, Malfoy whimpered fearfully.

'Come on Hermione, think! Volo won't cut it this time; the gap won't be big enough for three people on a slow broom to fly through from this distance.'

Hermione pulled her wand out of her sleeve, and took a deep breath. So what if this curse was a little…dark? It was this, or die.

"Aperturo Ignis!" With a bang and a horrible screeching sound, red flames exploded from the tip of Hermione's wand, and hurled themselves at the conjured fire, punching a hole in the flames, and striking the door behind them, forcing it further open. Harry shot forward through the hole in the fire that was slowly closing, edged by red flames, seemingly eating away at the fire as it continued to grow, and burst into the corridor, stopping suddenly to avoid a collision with the wall, as Hermione slashed her wand sideways and the doors slammed shut.

Hermione slid slowly of the broom to the floor, leaning back against the wall. Harry slid down beside her, and Malfoy fell to the floor with an ungraceful _–thwack!-_. He had obviously passed out as they were leaving the room.

Hermione suddenly leapt up. "Harry, get up! Did you touch the red fire?"

"No, why?" He asked, tilting his head slightly, eyes questioning.

"Well that…curse was developed to burn out an out of control fire, but if it touched a living thing, it would keep going until it was destroyed, just like it was meant to do for the cursed fire. That's why we had to contain it in the room; it will be fine as long as it is bordered by the walls."

"Merlin, do you think the room will still work after that fire?"

"I don't know!" Hermione sighed.

"Oh crap! What about the diadem! What if the room doesn't work and it's still in there somewhere?" He made as if to enter the room again, and stopped suddenly, twitching slightly.

Hermione took a deep breath as Harry hopped from foot to foot, and prepared herself. 'Are you _completely_ bonkers, Hermione Granger? You want to give up the _diadem of Ravenclaw_ without even _looking_ at it for more than _a few seconds_. And for the short time you did have it on, you had to interrupt a _revolutionary_ thought because some idiot set the room on fire. Now you are just going to let it go, so it can be destroyed before you even have a chance to do something that could set you apart from everyone else. Do you always want to be known as Harry Potter's best friend, or do you want to be known for your own achievements?'

A smaller voice piped up from the back of her head. 'What about Voldemort? If the horcrux isn't destroyed, he will still be immortal!' An implied 'and it will be all your fault.' lingered at the end of that sentence.

'Then take the horcrux, and you can destroy it later, when the confrontation comes, Voldemort isn't actually in the castle yet, you still have a few hours, and you have a basilisk fang in your bag.'

'So you are just going to sit in a corner and play with the diadem while everybody else fights to the death? Well that's not at all egocentric.'

Hermione pushed the voices out of her head. She had made her decision.

"The fire that Goyle started in the Room was Fiendfyre-"

"What?" Ron, who was standing to the side of them, looking vaguely unimpressed, demanded belligerently.

"Cursed fire." Hermione explained. "Fiendfyre is one of the few substances that will destroy a horcrux, but it is so dangerous I wouldn't ever have used it. If the diadem was in there-"

"It was!" Harry interjected, annoyed.

"_If_ you would be so kind as to let me finish." Hermione snarled, a foul mood arising. "I was trying to explain something."

"Sorry." Both boys muttered, heads bowed. They were all tired from the dragon, the Hogsmeade escapade, and the confrontation in the Room of Requirement, and tempers were running high.

"Good. _If _the diadem was in the Room of Hidden things,"

Harry muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and Hermione shot him a withering glare.

"As I was saying, if it was in there, the fire would have destroyed it."

"So the horcrux is gone?" Ron said, his head snapping up, leaping eagerly to a conclusion.

Hermione heaved a sigh. This was her last chance…

"Yes. It's gone."

Ron whooped gleefully, and high fived Harry.

"Five down, one to go, mate!"

"Six." Hermione corrected. "Voldemort is still running around being naughty."

"Not for long." Ron said, rubbing his hands together in a malicious sort of rapture.

They stashed Draco in the nearest broom cupboard, they all agreed that none of them wanted to deal with _that_ when he woke up, and decided that they should try and find Ginny, to tell her that the Room was non-operational, and Neville, to ask where they could help most with the battle.

They had just reached the third floor staircases, which was eerily silent, when she had a sudden idea.

"Uh, guys?"

"Yeah, Mione?"

Hermione resisted the temptation to roll her eyes; Ron knew just how much she hated being called that, but she continued.

"I was thinking, we only have two basilisk teeth between us…I want to go back down to the Chamber, and see if there is any way I can extract the venom, and contain it, instead of lumbering the creatures entire jaw around." She explained, hoping she sounded sincere. Hermione already knew that containing it would be far too dangerous, and she would just have to snatch a few fangs from the giant snake's mouth, then she could have the rest of the time with the diadem, with no one in the way, and no one around her to get hurt.

"That's brilliant Mione! I'll come with you!"

"No!" She said, forcefully, maybe too forcefully, she thought; Ron looked hurt. "You need to take care of Harry." She said, in a softer tone.

Ron was about to protest when Harry spoke up.

"You need to open it Hermione. If I say the parseltounge, can you remember what it sounds like?"

Hermione could have cried with relief, Harry was letting her go!

"Yes, yes, I'll remember."

"Okay, it's…ermm...open? No. OPEN."

"Still English, Harry." Ron said. "Try and imagine a snake, that helped last time."

"Thanks Ron," Harry smiled weakly at him.

He went very still, his pupils dialated, and when he opened his mouth, a sibilant hissing emerged that sent shivers down her spine. She listened, in rapture, and attempted to subscribe it to memory.

He blinked, and grabbed Ron's shoulder for support, but the noise still echoed through her head.

She also had to shake herself out of a stupor; parseltounge had a rather hypnotic effect.

"Thank you Harry, that was really helpful. Uh, if you need me again, hang on," She bent down, and picked up two small pieces of rubble, and tapped them with her wand so they smoothed and flattened out, into two pieces of paper. Transferring them to the palm of her left hand, she levelled her wand at them.

"Adipisci!" She swirled her wand around, one full circle anti-clockwise, one quarter clockwise, and another half anti-clockwise, and the sheets of paper glowed with the golden light of the protean charm.

"Okay, if you need to contact me, or visa-versa, write on here, and it will appear on the other one too, okay?"

"Okay." Both the boys confirmed.

"I'll see you in a little while, okay?" Hermione started to head down the staircase to the second floor, whilst they swung around to go down to the Entrance Hall.

"Hermione!" Ron spoke to her retreating back, as they were carried off in the opposite direction to her. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"

"I'm fine Ron, really." She called back over her shoulder.

She stood in front of the sink units in the out of order, second floor girls bathroom.

All she had heard is that Harry had spoken to the sinks in second year, and they revealed the opening to the Chamber of Secrets.

"What are you doing in here?" She whipped around, and almost pulled her wand on Moaning Myrtle. "You're Hermione Granger. Harry's" Here, her voice took on an almost sappy tone. "friend, aren't you?"

"Erm…yes, I am." She said, wondering how to get rid of Myrtle without offending her.

"He never comes and visits me. He said he would, but he never did." Myrtle looked like she might burst into tears.

"Harry has been very busy lately." The ghost sniffed, affronted. "But he always says how he wishes he could visit you." Hermione hastily amended. "Now Myrtle, how did Harry get into the Chamber 5 years ago?"

Myrtle pouted. "Well I don't know, all I saw was that he stood by that sink there." She pointed to the offending piece of porcelain, "and hissed something. But then I went. I don't know what happened after that."

"Thank you Mrytle." Hermione said, grateful.

"Oh, so you just got want you wanted and now you're not bothered! You are so mean!" Myrtle screamed, and hurled herself down the nearest toilet, sobbing.

Turning back to the sinks, and shaking her head in exasperation at Myrtle's behaviour, Hermione turned back to the sink, and examined the one the ghost had pointed at. Sure enough, there was a small engraving of a snake on the corroded metal of one of the taps. Hermione stepped back, and tried to recall what it was that Harry had hissed.

She opened her mouth, and something rose up inside her. "_Hessshasssa_." The words flowed from her mouth effortlessly, as the sinks started to move.

She stood above a drop into complete darkness.

She slipped her legs over the side of the tube, wondering, in dread, how far down it was.

"Lumos!" She whispered, and flicked the ball of light down the tunnel. It was a good 50 meters down, and then how far it curved past the drop was anyone's guess.

"Here goes nothing." She spoke to no one as she pushed of, praying that it wouldn't be too far down to the chamber.

She slid past the end of the drop, and through the pulsing orb of light that she had conjured, and further, around corners, before being spat out onto a heap of what she realised, with disgust, were the bones of small animals.

Standing up, and brushing of bones and slime with the aid of a quick scorgify, she looked around her.

Hermione was in the Chamber of Secrets.

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><p>If you could possibly smossibly review, constructive criticism is welcome, questions are encouraged, praise is well-loved, and flames are used to roast marshmallows.<p>

Voldysnout orders y'all: Please review!

Except he didn't say please. Because he is rude, the naughty boy. *quickly hides sentence and moves out of country*


	2. Chapter 2

**Power Tempts**

**Author:** Jezebelle Jade **Categories:** Drama/Angst **Paring**: Hermione Granger & Lord Voldemort/Tom Marvolo Riddle **Rating:** T **Word Count**: **Spoilers:** Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows up to Chapter 31.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, and Warner Bros. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.**  
><strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

Hermione looked around, wand outstretched, wrinkling her nose at the acrid stench, blood pounding in her ears. The wandlight cast harsh shadows against the grey, glistening walls of the chamber, and as she ventured forwards, the bones of small animals crunched under her feet, although a lot of them had been reduced to dust, a consequence of previous visitor's heavy treads, and age; after all, there was no basilisk to freshen up the pile anymore.

She observed the swirling patterns carved into the wall; the architecture down here was truly fascinating, the walls seemed to be made out of a mosaic of shining silver-black stones, but some patches were worn right down to concrete. Hermione wondered just exactly how Salazar Slytherin had managed to construct such a far reaching labyrinth; she had passed at least five tunnels as she was sliding down the main one, and had wondered where they lead, but would rather not have taken a diversion to the basilisks 5 year old food pile, or something to that effect.

With her free hand, she traced the body of a stone snake set into the wall, moving her wand closer so she could look at the ridges on the body. She was almost certain that the stones gleaming at her from their setting in the eyes were garnets. Pulling her hand back, she wiped the accumulated layer of slime on her jeans leg, and continued down the gloomy passage.

The closer she got to the rock fall she knew would be there, the more rough-hewn the walls started to look, as if it had been blasted from the earth rather than carved, the shining stones melting into dark granite.

Climbing through said rock fall was considerably harder for her than it was for 12 year old Harry, even after she and Ron had widened the hole on their way in earlier. She sniggered to herself as she recalled Ron brandishing his wand at the pile, about to blow a bigger hole through it, until she grabbed his arm, and gently reminded him that that would probably cause the entire tunnel to come down on their heads. She had agreed with Ron when he pointed out that getting through the hole might be easier if they were pancakes; but nonetheless they ended up summoning stones from the edge of the hole to gradually widen it, wary of the possible collapse of the pile. Even so, she managed to scrape her ribcage, hips, and palms squeezing her way through the hole.

Once she righted herself, and performed a quick healing charm on her hands, she continued down the gently sloping tunnel, going deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle.

"Oomph!" Her foot slipped on a something slimy, and Hermione plummeted to the floor.

'Well that was supremely elegant, Granger, well done. Now if there is anyone waiting to leap out and capture you behind a basilisk skin, they can pinpoint exactly where you are and make sure their Cruciatus curse doesn't miss, hey?' Hermione was so preoccupied with hushing the little snarky voice in her head that she didn't notice the 60 foot long snakeskin until she made a rather painful impact against the ground. Feeling rather glad neither Harry nor Ron were here at the moment, she extracted her foot from the large hole she had just made in the shell of the enormous snakeskin, and sighed in exasperation upon noting her swollen ankle. Yet another injury to add to her lovely array of bruises, scrapes and cuts of assorted color and size.

'Stupid overgrown worm can't shed its skin in the right place, dumping it in the middle of a cave...'

Hermione grumbled her way onwards to a carved snake encrusted circular door at the end of the main tunnel.

'Seeing a recurring theme here, no? I can see where all those Slytherins get their imaginative décor and insults...and marital partners…no wonder the most offensive thing Malfoy can come up with is "Mudblood", it's been inbred into his genes for centuries.'

She placed her palm on the cool surface, grimacing when the brownish slime oozed between her fingers. Really, couldn't Slytherin have done something about that? A cleaning charm embedded into the walls? A cloth and some soapy water? Hell, he could have affixed a mop to the basilisk's forehead, anything was an improvement! Hermione didn't think of herself as a particularly squeamish person, but slime on _every_ surface was what she considered overdoing it.

She recalled the correct pronunciation to open the door, and as she opened her mouth, she felt something rise up inside her.

"_Hesssshassssa._" The words seemed to writhe through the air with a life of their own, and Hermione pulled her hand back as she felt the stone snakes awaken underneath her palm, their red eyes flashing, bouncing wandlight back into her eyes as they moved.

Hermione wondered, as the snake made its way around the circumference of the elaborate carving, what it was that incited that feeling inside her every time she attempted to speak Parseltounge; she was not a true Parselmouth but she wondered if that was the general feeling that came with speaking an ancient magical language. It was possible that the effects of wearing Lord Voldemort's horcrux around her neck for so long had caused some ill effects, with it whispering dark promises to her at night in the tent, slipping in and out of the serpentine language, until it engulfed her wakened mind and she fell into a stupor, with sibilant hisses and dark shadows stalking her through her dreams…

Hermione blinked.

The door in front of her had swung back to reveal a gaping hole, a few feet above the stone floor. There was no time to get lost in her thoughts; she had a task to complete, and a mere couple of hours to do it in.

Carefully descending into the Chamber, Hermione felt for the rungs of the iron ladder below her feet, and wondered why a person as vain and materialistic as Salazar Slytherin was supposed to be, would have furnished what was basically a little hamster cage for his pet mouse tail so sparsely; unless Voldemort had nicked all the shag carpeting when he came down here in his sixth year. Harry had said he didn't have any money of his own then. Hermione giggled to herself, envisioning Tom Riddle struggling up the iron ladder with a roll of carpeting over his shoulder.

Hermione planted her feet on the ground with a splash; water from several large pipes was gathering at the bottom of the stairs. Covering her nose, to block out the horrible smell that had invaded her senses, Hermione peered further down the room. The Chamber was almost completely dark.

"Incendio." She cast, and the candles inside the mouths of the many serpent statues lining the stone walkway sprung to life. Hermione was curious what happened when the candles ran out, _if_ they ran out.

Hermione strode down the aisle, her footsteps resounding through the chamber, keeping her eyes firmly on the chipped beard of Salazar Slytherin's gargantuan statue, away from the skeletal basilisk remains, and the decidedly creepy stone snakes.

Whipping her wand around her, Hermione cast a heavy duty air freshening charm, filling the air around her with the fresh air. Air freshener's didn't work nearly as well as Bubble-Head charms, but were much more suitable for inspecting something. She then proceeded to conjure herself a comfortable wooden chair, and a small table with a lined paper notebook and a pen. She was in the Chamber of Secrets after all, might as well rub it in. She could imagine Slytherin's disgusted expression, with her sitting there on muggle furniture, using muggle stationary.

Setting her beaded bag down on the end of the chair, she withdrew the leather box that held Ravenclaw's diadem, and perched on the side of the seat, placing it on the desk almost reverently.

It wasn't looking it's best, from what she could tell from pictures she had seen in a few historical founders texts she had read; the surface was slightly dented in some spots, and it was still quivering slightly. She conjured a handful of bluebell flames, and placed them on a metal coaster, so she could inspect the diadem better.

Being goblin made, it should have been relatively safe from damage, it appeared that having a horcrux inside had messed up the properties somewhat, but it was free from scratches, dirt and rust.

"_Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." _The inscription etched into the thin silver band read. Hermione snorted. You wouldn't think so, with the way some of her classmates acted. In fact, you wouldn't think so from the way her two _best friends_ acted.

'Which is why you are down here without them. They wouldn't have understood you wanting to try on the diadem before destroying it.

_You know why? Because they don't care that knowledge is your passion. They don't care that your intellect is the only reason they are still breathing. They just take advantage of you._

Hermione chastised herself, of course Harry and Ron didn't take advantage of her; they were her best friends for a reason.

_Yes, because Ron was oh so nice to you when you refused to do his homework for him._

'We had fallen out; of course we were annoyed at each other. Homework had nothing to do with it.'

Determined not to listen to voices in her head, Hermione picked up the diadem, and placed it on her head tentatively.

Hermione breathed out softly as she felt her mind swamped by the endless possibilities. If there had been anyone else there with her, they would have surely worried about her health; her eyes were glassy and blank, her pupils huge, her face flushed and her hair collecting static electricity and forming a frizzy mass.

Inside, however, thoughts flashed around like minnows in a tank, gleaming and bright. She had so many questions, and the answers just led to more. Why Gamp's Laws of Elementary Transfiguration did not allow the creation of food, but you could conjure or transfigure animals, and cook them, plants could be produced and cooked, and water could be conjured.

There were ways around this, but the basic principals were that magic would not allow food to be conjured because doing so and then consuming it was detrimental to human health, as in death being caused. The created substance would eventually disappear, like leprechaun gold, and if it, or anything produced by its use was still in the system, it could cause the entire body system to spontaneously combust, if the proportion of conjured food was large enough to cause significant loss. However, Hermione theorised, if the substance had been used and the person had eaten real food with it having had time to transfuse the glucose into the blood and respiration had taken place, a person could technically survive as long as the entire body cycle was replenished before the food disappeared.

And then there was the problem she was having with her bag. The undetectable extension charm she had placed on it was working fine, even if she had had some problems with the books not wanting to be shrunk to go through the top. But that could be fixed by adding the Infinitely Pliant Charm to the bag, if she altered the wand movements slightly so that the bottom didn't stretch to the ground every time she dropped something in.

But the real problem she was having was with the weight. She hadn't been able to put an Anti-Gravitational jinx on it without risking it heading out of the stratosphere.

She was supplied with the answer within seconds of presenting the question.

There was an old spell, included in one of Morgan le Fay's scrolls, that Ravenclaw had apparently read, that allowed the decrease of the weight of an item, with which approximately 97% of the weight could be discarded. This could be applied 7 times maximum. This number of applications not only reduced the item to a tiny fraction of its original weight, it also increased the durability 49-fold.

With that problem solved, Hermione asked the diadem where she could find Nagini.

She was answered by a burning pain spearing through her head, and she screamed in agony, scratching at her scalp, her nails breaking off, and leaving bloody trails leaking from her fingertips and in her scalp. It felt like someone had cleaved through her head with a rusty old breadknife, and as pain shot down her spine, clung to conscious thought and ripped the diadem off, tearing out tufts of hair with it.

Hermione took one deep breath before she collapsed backwards, unconscious, the diadem dropping from her hand and clattering onto the cold stone.

Hermione gingerly opened her eyes. She was splayed awkwardly on the cold stone floor, almost unable to feel her left side, due to the cold. There was a coppery taste in her mouth; blood from her nose had run into her mouth and across her cheek, leaving a dried trail.

There was a terrible ringing sound inside her head. She paused. No. That wasn't inside her head. It was resonating of the walls, ceiling and floor, building in volume, until it was given words.

"You have fought," said a high, cold voice, clear enough to be standing right behind her, "valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen.

Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.

"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle commences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."

Hermione eased herself onto her feet, gasping as a sudden cramp seized her left side. It was gone almost instantly. She ran her fingers through her thoroughly messed up hair, and her eyes watered as her raw, bloodied fingertips came into contact with the gouged trails on her scalp. Gently pulling her wand from her sleeve, and handling it loosely, she muttered a quick "episkey". Although her nails reappeared, they no longer protruded past the end of her fingers, and she had to individually reattach them with _reparo_.

Hermione cursed. What was she doing, standing around repairing her nails, acting like Lavender or Parvati? It hardly mattered that having longer nails could increase wand stability and casting, she was in a battle, no time for elegance, and right now, Harry was probably running off to the Forbidden Forest!

Hermione grabbed the diadem, and as quickly as she could, replaced it in its leather bound case, and sprinted up the chamber to the ladder. Hoisting herself up and through the hole, Hermione scrambled through the tunnel, jumping over the shed skin, and gritting her teeth as her stiff muscles protested, she arrived at the tunnel mouth in record time.

Now all that remained was the small dilemma of how she was going to levitate up 100 meters of slimy piping. Hermione groaned; she hadn't thought about that when she was sliding down. There was no way that she could climb up. She rubbed her temples and glared at the cement tube.

Again, the feeling of something rising behind her eyes took her over, and against her will, she felt her mouth move. "Asssehra." The words slipped from between her lips with a life of their own, and the dirty floor vibrated beneath her, the smooth walls of the main tunnel fanned out and swivelled upwards to make a narrow gray staircase.

Hermione groaned and clutched her head. That definitely wasn't an effect of speaking the language; something was going on here, and she didn't like it. She pushed it aside for now; there was not much she could do about anything at the bottom of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, promising herself that she would talk to Harry about it when she found him. Carefully placing her feet as to not slip on the slick coating of slime that still lingered on the steps, she ascended as fast as she could.

Thoroughly out of breath, Hermione grabbed the side of one of the rusty sinks and pulled herself out of the tunnel, squeaking in alarm as the steps disappeared as soon as her foot left the stone.

She moved out of the way as the gaping hole began to close up, and in under a minute the entrance was replaced once again by the aged, spotty porcelain sinks. Hermione glanced around; Myrtle was nowhere to be seen, and Hermione was able to leave the bathroom without a tantrum.

She stepped outside, and immediately ducked as a red beam shot over her head. Hermione cursed as she realised she was never going to find Harry in the midst of this chaos, she didn't have the Marauder's Map. Hermione conjured a silvery, bubble-like shield around her, and decided that she would head straight to the Great Hall, and work upwards, so she was bound to find Harry one way or another.

* * *

><p>I have often wondered why Harry didn't just hide in Hermione's bag…thoughts?<p>

Please review, constructive criticism is welcome, questions are encouraged, praise is well-loved, and flames are used to roast marshmallows, as my friend said: "For thou flamers cannot hath pithed me off!"

Voldie, I mean, Our_ Lord_, *shivers in awe* commands you: Review!


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